001flages [Music] and next is to approve the agenda is an action I move to approve the agenda for August comments yes Mr yes Mr any call the public to see we have some public here okay okay now we're going to move into the study session which uh is titled use of technology and electronics which is kind of dog ductail in with first [Music] right first of all I'd like to thank everybody for coming today um I wish we had a little bit more but it's okay you guys are just as important um what we're we're talking about today is that I know we lured you here with the promise to talk about cells okay um what we're actually going to talk about is let grow play in our project proposal that we're doing for this
002school year we've already started a lot of these things and it's all encompassing so everything that we're doing um links together including the updated cell phone policy that we have okay right so the table of what we're going to be going over today is about the project the let grow play experience and the cell phone policy change then general information about playground equipment costs our project goals the different phases of the project the outcomes and current changes that are taking place on campus and the inspiration of the project which is literature the J right so to kind of set the stage for this a little bit um what brought this all on is over the last couple years as the Director of student services um I've been trying and those of you that have conversations
003with me in the board I've been trying to figure out things that we could do to help our kids and every year it just seems like the kids are having a harder and harder time and the anxiety levels are going up and up and up um and so during the summer I started doing a lot of research and trying to figure out what we could do and what why is this happening and why haven't we been able as a community to minimize it mitigate it or you know get rid of it all together and so um some of the things that we're noticing in the 2022 2023 school year and even before but these are things that have happened specifically in the last two years um bulling harassment on a regular basis students leaving school
004with help and anxiety concerns by calling or texting parents without letting the professionals provide the dist provided by the district assist in addressing issues and notifying the guardian for example if a kid is feeling ill they sneak their phone to the bathroom text their parents they're not feeling well and then they text you we know the parents are coming and say my kid text me they're here to pick them up when we have an RN on campus which most families probably don't have that at home that could assist help make decisions they could be life-saving decisions and then notifying that information immedately to the parent and seeing how they want to her person if it's a little stomach ache she can send them back to class right um if it's a heart palpitation then we
005can assist in getting them to the hospital and so we're kind of missing that opportunity that the district has provided us with an RN to do that um on the other side we have school counselors School psychologists as well so if a kid's feeling anxiety we you have those professionals here on campus to assist your children and so it's key that we are aware of that so that we can use those resources to benefit the kiddos students uh photographing and videotaping peers and staff without inet and at times posting media on social media sites without being set right in the classroom on the buses Etc and so a lot of the stuff that I'm going to talk to later on in my presentation comes back to the privacy and rights of the other students right
006lots of people think oh well we don't want our kid we're taking away their rights by taking a phone what about the people that are being videotaped with that phone do they have that right in in the educational setting um students contacting peers to notify them of impending investigation so we had this happen last year where we were um looking for a VAP device which I'm sure everybody in this room doesn't want vapy um and device and those substances on our campus and a student who was in a room when we took one person before we could get to the other room had already been texted and they were able to make that device disappear and we were not able to get possession of that device that day we could get it the next day
007but not that day okay um a student contacting a parent to come pick them up due to a faked illness and an effort to avoid criminal investigation this was a different big device situation where the student realized that she had been told on by her peers contacted the parent before the peers had a chance to come and tell us and was picked up and so literally as I was notified I watched the car pulled away from the front right once again another VAP device that that eluded us and we weren't able to retrieve um the sharing of pornography with others right so looking up pornography on my personal device and sharing it with here here at school this happens um thread of physical harm from one student to another typically on social media right um
008and it can be not just like a physical there can also be name calling right making fun of them for physical appearances this stuff happens on a on a regular basis at this school sexual advances and sharing of explicit self-taking pictures this happened one time where a student in our school had a relationship with somebody in a different state um thank goodness they were still minors but there was explicit photos being shared back and forth timing class on social media and access to the internet not related to class topics right so that's that social media social media aspect I talked about um that could be also playing games when you're supposed to be paying to your teamship teacher hiding it under the desk and doing math and then of course I covered that one already
009at the end okay all of these are not fictitious things or things that just happened in the United States these are specific incidences that I was involved in in the past two years as the disciplinary these are things that have and do occur at Continental School uh Tom Horn says this it is enough that they get bullied on their cell phones when they're away from school it should not be happening while they in school trying to learn so that the buling occurs 24 hours a day to permit that buling to go on 24 hours a day shows a lack of empathy for the students State superintendent schools all right so the let Ro play experence we are wanting to create this let gr experience for our students here on campus so that they are given
010the chance the opportunity to be interactive with the stuff that we'd like to roll out so that they have social activities with one another in order to develop that Independence the socialization skills and even though students are supervised by adults this let role play is Guided by the students out of their own student agency in this repe playay developing their own critical thinking skills tie it back in a little bit to how it goes with why we're changing these policies so our cell phone policy changes so last school year and the years previously for several years back um we just kept the same policy and that is this cell phon SmartWatches smart devices headphones student Electronics electronic modes of communication are to be used for emergency or educational purposes only with the teacher or Administration
011permission and must be off and put away in the students backpack during the school day students allowed to use cell phones smart watches smart devices headphones for educational purposes must have a technology uses agreement on file with the school okay that's the policy that we had last year what we've changed the policy to this year cell phones smartw watches smart devices headphones student electronic BS of communication are to be used for emergency or educational purposes only with or Administration permission and must be off and and this is the different part the bed part placed in a provided Lock storage container for grades 5 through eight during the school day middle schoolers will be storing their phones in their first period classes and retrieving them the last five minutes of the school day for grades K
012through 4 cell phone and then it goes on to what it was before must be off and put away in their backpacks okay then at the bottom if your child is not in need of a cell phone or Smartwatch for after the school day it is recommended that it is not brought to school right so if they don't need it for safely getting back home Etc then there's really not a purpose because they shouldn't have it here now the interesting things for me to talk about here is what is this policy state phone should be off right then why three slides ago did we have all those problems good question huh so we obviously have to do something what we're doing isn't working and our kids are being affected by it they're there's they're dealing
013constantly daily with the stuff on social media that's not uplifting that's they're sneaking the phones to the bathroom because they have them and looking to see what people posted about them or what people post about themselves that may be amazing that they're not doing and that's affecting our kids that's that self-esteem part that I talked about okay and so we've got to do something different and you're going to see in the rest of this slide I'm not that guy that wants to take things away um I'm not looking at discipline I want to give the kids the opportunity to have a break I want to give them an opportunity to have full attention on their educational process and building relationships with their peers and building self-esteem and I don't believe that's through social media while
014they're at school one of the things that I also want to point here is nowhere in here doesn't say that I'm going to stand at the gate and we're going to do a search of kids to take away their phones that's never been said by any of us if a kid has their phone off and put away in their backpack and they don't put it in the lock box then no one's going to know they have it and it's not going to be an issue we're putting the lock box so that they are given the opportunity to take give themselves that break okay um here's the consequences in the handbook on the top part so this was last year Continental School is not responsible for lost stolen or damaged cell phones and any electronic devices
015if cell phones smart watches smart devices headphones Electronics devices are seen by a staff member the electronic device will be taken away and must be picked up in the front office by a parent Guardian thank you for your understanding on this matter once again we did this we took away phones parents would walk in and before they left the office hand the phone right back to their child who just broke school rules okay is is this every child no this isn't every child right there's a lot of our children that don't even have phones at all there's some of our children here that don't bring their phones to school but it is a problem and we have had those disciplinary things that we talked about and those Wes were taken in those instances but then
016they're given right back to the child and we start the game all over again tomorrow okay so we added students in violation of this policy will also receive a minimum of one- Day lunch detention refusal to turn over a device upon request of a staff member will result in a referral for insubordination and will receive consequences in accordance thereof okay once again I want to be clear this isn't like if we can't see it and we've already told our staff if it's in a backpack and it's off no big deal this is if it's out and it's creating an issue and a distraction to the educational process okay take this one proposed procedures for f through eth grade step one device of and put away in backpacks on bus and while getting to first period
017step two once in first period Place device in assigned slot in class provided box which looks a lot of this numbers will be assigned step three the last five minutes of six period they will turn back to their first period class and retrieve their device and step four put device still off back in backpack until off of the school bus if they're taking the school bus or until they get picked up and they get back into their vehicle um and they're off school operation so people ask why this why a lock box here my answer to this is some schools for example cell points one of them that and this is going to date some of us in the room they remember the the royal blue calculator holders where you take your little blue calculator
018and put it there right um no one by the way my last I did they didn't ad that they had that either a lot a lot of schools are doing that where they put that in the back um on the back door of the classroom and the kids when they come in they'll put them there the reason why we didn't want to go with that although it is the cheaper route is this the kids then grab them and have to move them from class to class and we go back to the same problem we're not giving the kids a real break for seven hours the research has been done and in the book that we'll talk a little bit at the end of this um one of the students talked about this and said I
019absolutely love it when I go into my first grade class I turn in for the first 15 to 30 minutes all I'm thinking about is my phone but after that time I stopped thinking about my phone for the rest of the day and I stopped thinking about that's what I want to create for these kids I want to create a world where they don't have that stress of what's happening on social media they don't have that stress of what's up here posting in the class I thought maybe Johnny in the last class was taking pictures and might have them me did he post it on social media and now they're sitting there are they learning in that moment right that's that distraction um and I'll let Miss Rico talk a little bit about this but
020um this book kind of created a monster in me when we when I got back from vacation we were in a Administration meeting and I sat there and watched my colleagues as their phone would vibrate on the table or there'd be a dean and it was like a social experiment that I didn't realize I was doing um and it was kind of fun and I pointed it out at one point and for those of you that that don't know me I'm very outdoorsy I'm not a technology guy um uh obviously I have a phone I use it I think it's a great resource we can learn a lot from you know it can access a lot of good but it can also access a lot of ad and I noticed that in that meeting my
021phone Dean and everybody else when there they turn and look and see what was going on and whoever was talking would just keep going but is your attention solely on what the very important conversations we were having for a split second they look away their intention goes away and we've all experienced that right when you're talking to somebody and then all a sudden they look at their phone how does that make you feel that's how our teachers feel here they are they love this job and they love your children and you're losing that attention span for maybe just five seconds and then it may be longer and then it happens again and in the meeting we kind of joke because mine went off and I didn't flip it to look but I went like this
022and just for a split second me who I don't my phone was not tied to me it took my attention off the meeting and I realized I do it too right do you have anything you want to yeah and then I usually instead of having my phone up I'll turn it over so that you know I'm trying very hard to be in the moment and listen and even though it does vibrate I know it's somebody needs to get a hold of me but I really in a break then I'll check and see be like oh and keep going but you know we all have to work on that and so so that's that's reason one reason two is I want the kids to know that their phones are in a safe place that's why the
023lock box over something that anyone can come up and grab and take so the lock box allows us to secure that now one of the questions is well what happens if my kids feeling ill in the middle of the day and they have to be picked up right we have staff that goes to their classrooms all the time and gets their backpacks because they typically don't go to the nurse with their backpacks so when we do that we'll retrieve their phone all they have to do is tell us what number of slot the slots are numbered they'll have an assignment the teacher will have a sheet with their names on it and we'll be able to do that if a substitute has that then Mr Curtis and I have a key to all the boxes
024and we're able to go and assist the subs for sporting events when they leave early we'll assist the kids and getting their phone back back early obviously when you're traveling late night away games we want them to be able to contact with the games and um things like going to Washington DC and to Disneyland and Flagstaff this policy that I read before is different right so what we usually do is the kids aren't allowed to use those devices until they're told to by the shoper own at that time so in DC we they use them for phones only and they're not allowed to be on social media they're not allowed to take phone calls and then 15 minutes before they go to bed they call their parents to tell them what an amazing day they
025had all the things that they saw and learn and then they're safe and they'll talk from them tomorrow the same thing when we go to um Flagstaff Disneyland right when we have a long road uh road trip then we do let them use their phones for playing games and that sort of stuff because we're not trying to instruct them at that time okay so I want to be very very clear on that are there any questions related to that and why we went with the lock box Perfect all right so this is m into general information on let gr play so as I read this book I thought about my childhood a lot and what this does and and as I said I've done some research and you can't deny the news media there's all
026kinds of books out there that say things are different our kids are different today where the disrespect right the anxiety level it's all high but I haven't found a source that says how to fix it I hear a lot of problems but I I haven't got a lot of solutions the administrator that's kind of helpess right it's like great I'm very aware of the issues that I mentioned earlier but how do we work on this and what I love about this author is he gives us ideas and some of most of them have been used in other schools throughout the country and the world some of the ideas are used in other countries and other schools and so he puts some of them out there and he even gives some ideas that Heen been tried
027are his and he goes I don't know what if it'll work but what we're doing now isn't so let's try something okay and he refers to um like the let grow play Club he refers to um just free play a lot and what is that what does that look like I'll tell you what it looks like when you were a kid you probably went out and played kick the C with your friends you probably got a bunch of you and ran out and played roller hockey in the middle of the street with the garbage cans that's free play there's not a referee right there's there's not tons of equipment that we have to purchase to do it it's letting the kids experiment and was was your mom or dad there telling you the rules who
028who created them and were they always the same every time you play did they change depending on who is there yeah yeah so if I'm Steve and I'm not very athletic and I show up you might change the rules so that I have a place to play in that if I'm Joe and I'm really athletic and I'm really good maybe Joe only gets three goals and then he can't score anymore these are rules you can make that a parent's not going to make and a PE teacher is not going to make and a playground monitor is not going to make it's amazing let the kids think for themselves let the kids figure out their own problems instead of us solving them all the time what would happen where would our world be if we taught
029our kids to be self-sufficient so with that we are working very hard right now some of you may know that we're going to be doing a um fundraiser at triple play on Friday night to raise money for the Middle School playground specifically we've already got some sponsors kicking stuff in but this is something that's really important to us we want to bring those opportunities to our kids okay and I said some stuff doesn't cost money but our Middle School playground has basically nothing and you'll see that even this year we were able to add just little things that didn't cost a lot that had a big difference and I'll show you those pictures here in a minute they put together by middle schoolers they were built by middle schoolers over the yeah okay so cornall
030notice this is concrete okay if you were aware if Veterans Park right across from cor Creek there actually is some there that's already been there four years um part of our admin team went down there because you know to spend money you got to test it out right so we went down and play ping pong and threw some some bags in cornal that equipment had been there four years and looked in excellent shape all right for four years none of our playground equipment last four years out here because of the Sun so the way that they built it the net is made out of aluminum okay and then the bases are made out of concrete cornhole same thing and it's cre in the back where it drains so it doesn't hold water or creatures all
031right so we've got corn ho table tennis rope flatter Checkers and check now like I said my background I was a PE teacher here for 10 years is Checkers and chess and athletic physical exercising thing if you run around like musical chess typically not you're sitting there there you go it's thinking it's working with other people it's cooperating it's learning how to be a good winner and a good loser which is important it's best better than a kid just sitting against a concrete wall because they don't have anything that interest that and so we're looking at bringing two of these tables so we actually have four of those and there's a picture you'll see it later that shocked me that happened last week Cru ball made out of concrete okay Connect Four we're hoping to
032get two of these at the middle school and two in the elementary so I am thinking about elementary too but Elementary has a lot going on for them right now like they have the uh playground they also have the GaGa ball pit which the middle schoolers are really jealous of and we'll talk about that a little bit later um and the Beautiful Fields with the turf so there's a lot going on for them not a lot for middle school so we're working on that and I will say um every other day four or five does go out to that outdoor playground as well so they will be exposed to that as well so be that playground will still service fourth grade through 8th where the middle it's the outdoor concrete basketball court and then we
033let him use the softball field for some stuff um and I'll go into that I've got some pictures that'll explain that a little bit more but it's just kind of a small combined space with not a lot going on about probably eight years ago a couple of us came in on the weekend and added um two tether ball poles so you really for all those kids over 200 kids you have two tether ball poles three concrete basketball courts and that's it right so as you can see we're looking at making it fun making School fun making it notice all those things they have to play with someone right they have to cooperate they have to figure out what's the rotation so everyone gets a turn continue on the next day remember when they blow the
034whistle like we're gon to continue playing tomorrow let's keep we want to get that attitude back into our kids that excitement back into our students a go out there as well all right project goals so systems and activities so on this one a lot of these come from the book okay and notice and I I need to do a better job but we have Habit to down here does anybody know where Habit to comes from how about our students you guys familiar with that begin with the end in mind you're shaking your head yes can you tell us where we get that that leader and me right so last here we encompassed leader and me into our school all the these programs tied together right and for example on the games that we talked about
035before what we're working with and when I trained the monitors two weeks ago um is and reading myself to the punch here um come back to we have the let gr play Club what is that that's new this year it's going to start next week on Monday what this is is I have two sponsors that have read the book who have gone to the let gr play Club website if you guys are interested just Google that and it'll come up and you can email them for the curriculum so they can see what that looks like but it's getting kids to play and one of the interesting things it says with the monitor is your job is just to make sure kids are safe don't get seriously hurt or die and let them play and figure
036it out and not give them a lot of stuff let them connect with each other let them come up with ideas things to do and it can be lots of things they can work on and in the beginning we believe we'll have to provide like a menu list of options but the goal is by the end of it that they take over one thing we've noticed with our students and as mentioned in the book as well is kids attention SP is about 60 seconds you guys ever heard of YouTube shorts yeah so how long can kids watch YouTube shorts hours all day how long can they watch a history video about World War I that's an hour and a half when do they tune out about 60 seconds in so they got the intro but
037then their minds are moving on this club is designed in the beginning we're going to start with trying to get them to do an activity for 15 minutes before switching the goal is by the end of the year they'll be able to play the same activity for an hour and a half without switching the game but they can switch the rules to make it more exciting more challenging more inclusive and they have the power not the monitors the monitors should just be making sure that they're safe and giving them any support that they need to pull it off and this is going to be ran Mondays Tuesdays Thursdays and Fridays um and there is a tuition with it because it is after school and it is for an hour and a half um but that
038is something we're really excited about you'll see later on the board agenda board numbers probably already seen that request um and we'll hopefully approve that later this evening okay um the let grow experience the let grow experiences need as well what this is and a perfect example of this is um there's a video and you can go and Google that as well it'll pop up um and it doesn't really apply to this area but I'm from northern Idaho so it applied to me and I thought it was great but when we watch the introductory video it shows us camera crew and they're in the school and the teacher says we're going to do the let gr experience what that is is you're going to go home and you have a menu list and um you
039and your parents will work together parents have to approve what it is but you got to pick something or create something that you've never done before to build Independence okay and some of the things on that list are bake a pie for chor milal walk the dog to the park for the first time on my own um for a middle schooler go to the grocery store and get the groceries and pay for them without parents' help right order my own men food at the restaurant without my parents doing it for me we're finding a lot of our kids and our students can't communicate with people in the outside world when it comes to things like that their parents to do that for them so get him to do something for the first time the Idaho
040experience is there's this boy and he's like yes I'm gonna go home and talk to Dad he gets excited so he goes home and talks to Dad the camera follows him home and he goes and says Dad we got a l gr experience coming up this month um I want to drive the Potato Truck and dad looks at of me was like what and the boy is eight and he says I want to drive the Potato Truck and the dad says what makes you think you can do that he says well I've already been driving the fourwheeler and then I've driven the pickup truck and then I drove the John Deere tractor in the field for two days straight so I want to drive the potato truck because I want to be helpful and dad
041says okay and so dad works with him shows him the differences between the Potato Truck explains that the Potato Truck is much larger than everything else that he drove okay it can also go much faster because of the way that it's geared and so the dad explains this to him and here he goes and next thing you know this 8-year-old is driving the Potato Truck by himself cameraman's outside of the truck and here this kid goes driving through okay do I expect us to have our 8-year-olds they'll all get arrested in Ser so no okay but there are things here that we can trust our kids we need to challenge our kids if we don't trust them where are we going to be so we need to challenge them and we need to let them
042grow okay play based recess I already talked a little bit about that one of the examples in the book is um having playgrounds that are like STEM related okay um in the book it refers to one of them as a garbage playground where they literally have tires and they have boards laying around and things like that remember those days when we just would play with anything that was laying around what's wrong with that what's wrong with creating so we're looking at that almost everything because of insurance and things like that all of our playgrounds are bolted down right bolted or concrete so have objects so we've gotten little objects that are STEM related that are coming from Scholastic that are plastic or for that the kids can build things out on the playground and they
043can work together to build the Dome or whatever it is that they want to do so we're looking at those sorts of things um the adventure playgrounds what I just talked about increased opportunities for Middle School playground we've talked about that already we've talked about hey why don't we have a volleyball B out there how hard would that be right why don't we get soccer goals for the middle schoolers we've never had that for years they've played soccer out there on the concrete with no goals none of us bother to ask what the goal is where are they shooting at so these are all things that we failed we failed creating the environment and it's a very stagnant environment for a playground how fun is that um student referees self-conflict resolutions this is what I
044was starting to go into we worked with the monitors that when a kid comes up instead of saying okay I'll go talk to him so it doesn't happen again or go play over there so it doesn't happen again that's not solving anything that's not teaching anything right so the monitors have been trained that if a child comes up and says to you Johnny took my ball saying well have you talked to Johnny about it yet would you like me to go with you and help you with that conversation so walk over to Johnny and say Johnny is it true that you took the ball Johnny says it's my teacher's ball see it's got a name on it and then the child says we don't have teacher balls anymore Mr L got his blue boxes all
045over the playground so we don't have to carry them back and forth and disrup class they're all right here Johnny says oh and then this kid says hey why don't we just play together that's what we're looking for and so we're we've been training our monitors to have those conversations to do peer mediation right there on the spot my goal is by the end of the year that the kids are going to start walking water be like she's going to tell me to go talk to the over here and they're going to go and resolve that problem and that they only need to come to the adult that's there when there's a serious issue or once that tried to um resolve it and they can't then that's when you get the adults out right Independence
046solving your own problems communicating working with others that's what we're going for here um obviously use of technology and electronics we talked about that quite a bit on the front end of this project um by the way in here last year they were taking them in recess and sitting there and playing games that's doesn't happen anymore because they're not in the cafeteria during that recess time they're out outside um recess prior to lunch this is one of those changes we looked at this a lot we talked to a lot of our staff and this is what we found out when the kids come back from lunch recess right because it was after lunch they're coming in hot they're coming in sweaty they're coming in possibly in an argument over a ball right and it took
047anywhere from 10 to like 20 30 minutes to resolve all the issues in the class before the teacher could start teaching wasted time wasted instructional time so we looked at that we looked at kids would go into the cafeteria their lunch boxes they'd open them up eat what they like throw the rest away because they weren't hungry because the first lunch started at 10:30 they'd go get a tray eat the apple throw everything away and then they'd go and hope that by doing that they would get to line up earlier to go out to recess so what we've done is we switched that recesses first their teacher now takes them playground the monitors meet them there they play they get hungry they get tired they go in and now they're in air conditioned um cafeteria
048and they're eating and we've seen already huge improvements with eating lunches we've heard that from our school nurse the stomach aches that are happening are reduced as well during that time because before they were eating right the ones that would eat and then they're going running around in our lovely arizona5 degree weather on the playground and their stomachs are upset we've seen a decrease in that already and we're not in two four weeks to school anything happens during recess taking care of during recess they still have lunch time and then we're back into the classroom as well they're not it's not happening recess they're in the nurse's office for a while and they miss instruction all time so it's been we've been hearing some great feedback from our students and our staff we also increase
049free time for Middle School at 730 when they can get dropped off instead of just having them sit on concrete and wait to going to school they're going out to that area we talked about and they're able to play with each other on day one it was hilarious they stood and looked at each other like what do we do and they did nothing not they did nothing they didn't know what to do with that extra free time I'll show you pictures in a minute I keep promising you they figured it out within two days because these pictures were two days after so on the third day of school okay um kindergarten students free time prior to school day on the Kinder playground the elementary kids always had that but Kinder were with them we found
050that having a 5-year-old play with fourth and fifth graders probably not a great idea so we created that safe place for our younger kiddos um and got supervision there in that playground and that's been working great okay early release Wednesdays picnic for middle school students this is different and it's fun because it Middle School always feels that they get shy here they've always said that you know we we don't get the same as everybody else and so what happens on Wednesdays is they get to go to the fourth and fifth grade playground where there is a go out there they get to sit and there's benches around that area with the shade structure and they get to sit on the grass and eat lunch we have a bunch of picnic tables out over on the
051other side sit there wedes so up on the stage there is so that if they choose they can eat inside as well but we have that and we saw that our first Wednesday almost all the kids went outside and just loved it you're so the thir outcomes are a decrease in disciplinary infractions because students are going to be so excited and engaged with one another in taking on that student agency did uh decrease in anxiety and an increase in positive mental home what we have been seeing a lot of was there was a lot of social media happening in between class ES or a lot of text threads that were being discussed throughout the day and then a lot of the things that were happening were happening at recess because it was revolving all around
052social media or the text messages or things that had happened outside of school and they were really festering on them and there was a lot of hurt FES so and an increase in positive test scores because students are really focused fully engaged reduction in cyber bullying we don't want that here on our campus taking place at any point in time outside but if we could control it and help it on campus we would love to have that reduction cyber buing and increase in creative thinking which we've touched a lot on throughout the thislet pro play project and decrease in disruption to the educational process which we've provided many examples of how that looks throughout the day okay this is our picnic Wednesday so like I said this was um last week and just three days
053into school here you have middle school and off Route there's some over here sitting down this was super interesting because here the kids have the opportunity to go and play dog ball which they've all said they want to and I walk up and no one's playing it there's a ball sitting there and no one's playing so I walk up to boys that are sitting there literally on the bench staring at it and drooling that they're right next to the gogg Ball P and I said hey why are you guys playing and one the kid says we don't know how and I said out of all the kids sitting here no one knows how and he said yep I said I don't buy that and one kid goes and he was a quiet kid and I
054said he knows how how about you leave the activity do you mind getting in the Gaga pit and tell all the rest of them the rules and a kid who normally wouldn't step up normally wouldn't be a leader because there was a game that he had played in a youth camp earlier this summer and had learned the rules he had the opportunity to lead this activity that day he found his voice and he was a leader and the kids respected him listened to him and played the game and as you can see quickly they were all playing we saw students who had some really rough times here I I won't forget that moment either because there was a student who's usually always alone Always by thems I turned to look and he was in the
055middle of it all laughing I haven't seen this student laughing in months but and everyone was just together it was a great s okay this is the kid playing soccer up there on the soccer nets as well the middle schoolers okay and as I talked about the morning free play on day one they stood there and look at each other not knowing what to do on day three in the morning from 7:30 to 7:50 here we have a bunch of kids out playing volleyball here we have two boys playing tether ball here we have a bunch of boys out on the soccer field playing soccer with the Nets we have some gentlemen enjoying the v in the shade structure and then this it's like they knew I was going to get them chest boards someone
056brought one from home and they're sitting there in the morning playing chess I was like yes I've got something right this is what the kids want they want to play look at this was not stage none of these pictures were stage this is the natural look on this kid's face when I just happened to snap it okay so he's not even playing but he's interested he's socializing and just on last oh part of our synergize better and then on this one it's important to sharpen this off balance feels great right we expect these kids to work hard we expect them to test well we put a lot of pressure on them they've got to have balance they've got to find the fun and education and we've got to bring it back to this school and
057to our children our inspiration on this is obviously um a couple things but we did do research we did reach out to some schools most of these are Arizona schools so for example aache Junction L Elementary woolhead City Phoenix High School and then the last one Los Angeles okay all of these have implemented rules to monitor cell phone use electronic device use they all look a little different some are less strict than what we have some like bhead City are more strict where they do no phones aren't even allowed to come to school or backpacks right so it really just depends on you know where the school is at but that's an example some examples of that okay and the biggest inspiration here is the anxious generation I'm glad that our room's going up this
058book is amazing it starts off talking about all the issues that were noticing in society and like I said it ties it to data there's a lot of Science in here right but then what I love about it is the further chapters chapter 11 is written to schools okay there's a chapter written specifically for parents there's a chapter written specifically for communities like Mayors Governors presidents of the United States and it doesn't just say these are the problems but it says here are some ideas for Solutions give them a try so I challenge you that if you anything I set up here seems restrictive it's not I want what's best for your kids I love your kids I want them to be happy I want their anxiety to go away I want them to look
059for challenges I want them to be excited about goals if we as a community come together and we Implement some of the strategies in this book I believe that we can change our community just one kid at a time one playground at a time and so I encourage you to go ahead and read this book in the book it talks about the things that that are main Concepts social deprivation sleep deprivation attention fragmentation which we talked about and addiction these are all things that our kids are dealing with on a regular basis so if we work together and we show them what it's like to have fun and to relax and to socialize build selfconfidence I know that we can overcome a lot of the issues that this is a TED Talk we don't have
060time for this today but if you want to write that down at the top I encourage you doing that it just supports the ideas and the concepts that we've talked about here today and we just like to open it up for question anybody have a couple ofes for questions any questions got to be at least one out there concern presentation to the kids so that they understand where you're coming from I haven't given this slide presentation to all of the kids what we have done is we've talked to them in assemblies a couple of assemblies already explaining some of the rules we've also explained why they're going to see an increase in the change in the playground and why we did that why recess before lunch those sorts of things we have the entirety of
061the presentation we have't Mr Ferguson's been recording for us so we're hoping to make this he's going to do his best to take this link and put it on the website so that we can share that information because we did have parents reach out and said that they were concerned but not able to attend and so our hope is that this is the why right it's we're not doing this just because I need more rules to to keep you [Music] busy we explain that in the assemblies what that yes ma'am so the funing is this we're having a cornhole tournament on Friday just to kind of kick us off um there's people that are really Bing to this I don't know if you're with joean with he own Triple Play that's where we're doing it
062he's wanting to match whatever we find break so he's working on that um we're we're working with the Madera church is going to volunteer to come in and help us you notice the volleyball nets out but there's no line so they're volunteering on one of their volunteer days they do that quarterly to come and help uh refreshen our hop Scot our four square and make volleyball lines out on those courts so it's a group effort it's a community effort this isn't a standalone Continental thing our community can benefit from these things out there so as far as dollar amounts I'm not comfortable putting out there because I've got quotes coming it's the concrete stuff is not cheap but it last a long time which is why we're looking at if we would bought corn boards
063we imagine they wouldn't last a mon that were just the normal wood so that's what we're looking at um but you know as we go forward if you're interested in helping me Kevin I can share that information with you there but Mr Greg we're not to that point to share 100% because we're still developing everything and where it goes and we're still waiting for one of the cloes from the vendors back one of the bigest part of our leader program here at the school as we rolled it out last year we're learning as staff students the biggest part is the parents and the families joining us whether it's on weekends or after school in evenings to create and build and grow and do projects around our school together as a community for our students and
064then be able to step back and say we created this together as a team as a family so we're really excited we're really working hard on getting those monly cult newsletters to you but we're also working hard on getting those weekly newsletters you know updates and everything um on a weekly basis which is something new that we are doing this year so please just make sure you review them and see when we have events we'd love you to spread the word and to be a part of what we're working on here just my last thing if you read this or if you have concerns and you want to come talk to me read this first and I'll come and talk to you all day long about it okay really excited about what's in here and
065so feel free to do the research everybody in this room is invested in the community one way or another this will help make it easier to parent um there's just a lot of stuff in here that can make our community go where it needs to go so I appreciate your support tonight thank you for coming out taking the time to listen thank you Mr all right